Amherst Survival Center groundbreaking draws more than 100

View full sizeThe Republican | Don TreegerA groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new Amherst Survival Center on Friday. Guests at the event were asked to bring shovels, and here, many of them participate in the groundbreaking by tossing dirt.

AMHERST – The plan was to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new Amherst Survival Center before the foundation was laid, but the builders were too fast, the center’s president said Friday.

“It is a foundation appreciation event,” Jan Eidelson said of ceremonies Friday marking the beginning of construction of the $2.5 million facility on Sunderland Road.

More than 150 including town and state officials, volunteers, board members, donors and people who use the center gathered on the site that once was home to Rooster’s restaurant to celebrate the building of the new facility.

They brought their own shovels or trowels, in some cases, or borrowed their neighbor’s to toss the ceremonial dirt.

John and Elizabeth S. Armstrong were among those wielding shovels. John Armstrong was a former University of Massachusetts trustee and director of research and later vice president for science and technology at IBM.

The couple helped the center find the new location and donated during the silent capital campaign that raised $2 million of the $2.5 million cost.

Elizabeth Armstrong said the former board president invited them to have lunch at the center about five yeas ago.

View full sizeThis is an artist's rendering of the new Amherst Survival Center building.

“I was struck by everyone’s good spirits,” she said, referring to the staff and those using the services. “I wasn’t really taken with the facility. It was dismal. It was such a contrast to the energy of all the people.”

The center offers meals, food, clothing and medical care to more than 4,000 people a year from 11 communities. It operates in the basement of the town-owned North Amherst School.

Fundraising went public in January, and Lynn Griesemer, the chairwoman of the capital campaign, said $100,000 more has been raised.

State Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg came to do his part, just about 10 days after returning to work. The Amherst Democrat was out for about four months while he recovered from cancer treatment and subsequent complications.

“For John and me it’s great to be anywhere,” he joked. Town Manager John P. Musante was out of work in the autumn after being hospitalized following a fall.

“They’re going to have a building worthy of what they do,” Rosenberg said.

“Amherst is not perfect,” said state Rep. Ellen Story. “If you look at this project as a case study, it’s pretty perfect.”

Musante told those gathered that public works crews would be repaving Sunderland Road, the site of the new facility, and extending the sidewalk across the street to make it safer for those who walk there for services.

He said he’ll talk to the chairman of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority Advisory Board about extending bus service to the site.